Altay-Sayan

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Two of 10 world’s greatest rivers – the Ob’ and the Yenisei – spring here. One of the symbols of the region – the Belukha Mountain (4509 m) – is the highest peak in Siberia.

Amazing big cat – the snow leopard – and the biggest wild sheep – argali – live in the mountains of Altai and Sayan.

The Altai-Sayan region is a crossroad of the most ancient human cultures. This region includes numerous historical objects and archeological sites and is considered to be one of the cradles of our civilization.

Six nature territories of the region are the UNESCO World Culture and Nature Heritages objects. The Altai-Sayan Ecoregion is one of the key Global 200 Ecoregions foreground for saving the biodiversity.

But the resource development of the Altai-Sayan (industrial and infrastructure projects, uncontrolled tourism, poaching, extensive agriculture etc.) and the global climate changes are the reasons for direct and sideway threats to biological and landscape diversity of the region. The protection of this unique nature place is one of the priorities for WWF.

The WWF experts have been developing an Ecoregion Action Plan for saving the Altai-Sayan nature and minimize key threats.

The key conservation targets in the Ecoregion Action Plan for the Altai-Sayan such as follows:

Flagship species conservation – the snow leopard and the wild sheep argali and their habitats

Mountain forests and steppe ecosystems conservation

Ecological corridors between protected areas to save the integrity of the populations

The WWF supporters play important role in our work – they help us to find money for financing some conservation actions and projects. For example, the visit-center “Panda-yurt” in the Ubsunurskaya Kotlovina (Ubsunur Basin) State Nature Reserve (Tuva Republic) was build due to the donation of one WWF supporter. Besides, with the help of our supporters we conduct opinion polls, clean territory of nature parks. Once we massed 127 sacks of garbage during two days of work in the Stolby State Nature Reserve!